Singer Paula West leaves Nikko audience wanting more

By Andrew Gilbert

July 7, 2017Updated: July 7, 2017 1:44pm

Veteran performers know that one key to a successful show is to leave an audience wanting more. And no jazz singer on the scene kindles musical desire with the promiscuous abandon of San Francisco’s Paula West.

Originally scheduled for a monthlong run, she opened a condensed two-week stand at Feinstein’s at the Nikko on Thursday with the kind of eclectic program that’s become her calling card. And almost every number begged for an entire show dedicated to the songsmith’s work, starting with her briskly swinging take on the gorgeous Harold Arlen/Johnny Mercer standard “Any Place I Hang My Hat Is Home.”

Granted, a savvy jazz singer inspiring a yen for more Arlen and Mercer isn’t a high bar, but West was equally effective interpreting Bob Dylan’s “Mr. Tambourine Man,” gracefully navigating the tangled lyrics. As for most of the material, pianist Bruce Barth provided the dramatic arrangement, which started out at a languorous ballad tempo before picking up rolling momentum.

A superlative accompanist who played a major role in Mary Stallings’ recent SFJazz residency, Barth worked with West about 10 years ago and knows how to keep shifting the instrumental textures around her pleasingly dry contralto. Whenever the combo locked into a particularly compelling groove, drummer Greg Wyser-Pratte’s dancing brushwork usually served as the propellant. He’s the Bay Area ringer in West’s ace New York band, which also features bassist Vicente Archer and guitarist Ed Cherry, an undersung master who spent more than a decade on the road with Dizzy Gillespie.

Barth’s arrangements pivot on Cherry’s versatile guitar work, which slyly references a song’s original setting, like on West’s fierce and biting version of “Gimme Some Truth.” Switching gears with the dexterity of an Indy 500 driver, she followed John Lennon’s dismayingly topical plea with a buoyantly swinging “Put on a Happy Face.”

One of the pleasures of a West performance is her poker-faced delivery of bawdy double entendres, and no American Songbook contributor penned lyrics more shameless than Cole Porter. As she nailed each punch line of the rarely performed zoological list song “Nobody’s Chasing Me” it was hard not to wish for an entire program dedicated to Porter’s playful smut (“The cat is taking a lickin’” indeed).

The evening’s only misfire was a rollicking rendition of the 1974 Carl Carlton hit “Everlasting Love,” a song beyond even Barth’s alchemy, though West’s belting earned some of the set’s more spirited applause. She was much more in her element on “The King and I’s” swooning “I Have Dreamed” and “South Pacific’s” heartbreaking “This Nearly Was Mine,” renditions so emotionally taut that they invited an extended trip through the Rodgers and Hammerstein songbook.

She saved the most ambitious number for the closer, with an extended arrangement distilling “Abbey Road.” After kicking off with a lean instrumental version of “Come Together,” West came in for a medley of “Golden Slumbers,” “Carry That Weight” and “The End.” It was a glorious finale that raised a question: How about a Beatles show, Paula?